Post navigation

This article is a guide to fix the problem with unresolved Bluetooth Peripheral Devices when pairing a Nokia mobile phone using Microsoft Bluetooth Stack in Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Bluetooth-enabled Windows Server 2008.

If you try to pair a Nokia phone with Microsoft Bluetooth Stack in Windows 7 / Windows Vista / Windows Server 2008, you may end up with a bunch of annoying Bluetooth Peripheral Devices in Device Manager, listed under Other devices.

How Are They Discovered at First?

To connect any device, this is the routine, you open the Bluetooth applet from Control Panel, go to the Devices tab and select “Add…”. Then turn the mobile phone’s Bluetooth on, check My device is set up and ready to be found. and click Next. After selecting a passkey and completing the pairing process, the annoyance begins, with Found New Hardware as a start. Select I don’t have the disc. Show me other options., then Browse my computer for driver software (advanced), select the Bluetooth driver folder discussed before, and click Next. The result is a page showing Windows was unable to install your Bluetooth Peripheral Device, Windows could not find the driver software for your device. Inspecting their details will show all these unknown Bluetooth Peripheral Devices are all discovered on Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator (BTHENUM).

The discovery of these unknown Bluetooth Peripheral Devices depends on the services you select for your paired cell phone. In fact if all the Bluetooth services for your cell phone are deselected, no unknown Bluetooth Peripheral Devices will be detected. To remove these services from your Bluetooth device, select a device and click Properties, inside the Services tab, deselect all the services and click OK. But before deselecting all of them, keep on reading, because there’s a chance you could install some of them successfully.

Installing Nokia PC Suite which includes Nokia Connectivity Cable Driver (known as Nokia PC Connectivity Solution in the past) will not solve the problem. The reason is because that drivers are for USB connection, and don’t include any Bluetooth INF. There’s an INF folder however (C:\Program Files\Nokia\Nokia PC Suite 7\Inf) including two INF files (nokbtmdm.inf and Nokia_Bluetooth.inf) which might help a little bit. The INF file nokbtmdm.inf (included in Nokia PC Suite) is supposed to support one of our unknown Bluetooth Peripheral Devices, the one responsible for Dial-up networking (DUN) service, but fails to start the modem. It includes the appropriate GUID (00001103-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb) for each Nokia phone, but fails to start each model’s specific Bluetooth modem (Nokia N95 8GB Bluetooth Modem in my case, GUID: BTHENUM\{00001103-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb}_LOCALMFG&000a). Then I tried the less-specific Nokia Phone Bluetooth Modem Version 7.0.0.1, and it worked.

Then using the INF file mdmbtmdm.inf (Microsoft Windows Bluetooth Modem Driver Inf) discussed before, which can be found among Microsoft Bluetooth Stack driver version 6.0.6001.18000 (06/21/2006), the same device was installed as Standard Modem over Bluetooth link.

The INF file btwavdt.inf (Broadcom Bluetooth AVDT Service Installation) discussed before, which belongs to Broadcom (Widcomm) Bluetooth driver version 6.0.1.5500 (08/31/2007) contains a series of definitions which might help more than Nokia’s own INF files to install “Bluetooth Imaging Responder” and “Bluetooth SyncML”. Please note once installed, Bluetooth Imaging Responder and Bluetooth SyncML will not be shown anymore, because they’d be listed under “Bluetooth Virtual Devices”, only visible when “Show hidden devices” is selected. It also includes the definition for “Bluetooth Remote Control”, which is another virtual (hidden) device, but unfortunately it fails to start the device, reporting the error code 10.

Thanks man, those unknown devices were driving me bananas. In my case, even the screenshoot “04-working-services.jpg” had an “unknown service” tab, which unchecked, together with Nokia OBEX and Nokia SyncML server took care of everything. Also in my case, remote control worked, and maybe the unknown service was SyncML DM client, as that one is not listed. I have multiple others listed, and they work.

EXCELLENT POST! Thank you. This was driving me nuts until I Googled upon this thread…

Basically, you just go to your Nokia E5 in Devices/Printers, right-click and select Properties, then select the ‘Services’ tab, deselect every check box, hit Apply, and that should be the Bluetooth problem sorted! (outgoing anyway……)

I can send files from my Laptop to my Nokia E5 via Bluetooth without ANY problems now! …although for some reason, whenever I try to do the reverse and send files from my Nokia to my Laptop it still won’t connect!!! I go to the file on my Phone, try to send via Bluetooth to my HP Laptop, but it still says ‘unable to connect’ on my Phone. I’ve also tried selecting Receiving Files via Bluetooth File Transfer on my Laptop, but it doesn’t recognise my device!

Oh well, at least now I don’t have to connect via USB to send files to my Nokia… MANY, MANY THANKS TO THE ORIGINAL POSTER!

This is a great tutorial although, however my 5,5 year-old Nokia E55 is now dead due to old-aging resulting in random reboots.

For a quick response, it took several hours to me figure out that the several “Bluetooth Peripheral Device” entries in “device manager” are actually “virtual” services which appear as “devices”. I have the quite latest PC Suite and drivers installed, and despite that, 4 services (bluetooth peripheral devices) are unable to install on my Windows 7, which are seen on screenshot below.

I’m attaching the sucessful installation/pair of my E55 here, note that the unchecked services which causes identification problems in device manager when checked.